Welcome to the official page of John Lemley's City Cafe, a radio program featured on GPB Classical.
Street Art
How clever is this, using the step within the building to create the musical instrument, so imaginative!
But it leads itself to the artists design fabulously.
Added to this, how cleverly its faded, as if she’s made of sand and the winds taking her away!
Loved it - what a wonderful gift to what is a very depressing building!
Stunning work ❤️
Artist - Sfhir Ogt Lcsiete 🙏🏻
Louisiana-born saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, Branford Marsalis is 63 today.
(📷 Douglas Mason/Getty Images)
It’s time to indulge in the ‘hear and now!’
On Saturday morning, Chernihiv Music and Drama Theatre in Northern Ukraine was hit by Russian fire and a suspected ballistic missile.
Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs, said seven people were killed and 90 wounded in the attack on the theatre and university. Footage from news agencies shows the heavily damaged building and surroundings.
The theatre was built in a classical style resembling an ancient Greek temple. It opened in 1959. In 2001 it received academic status and has been an important venue for music and theatre productions.
(📷 Getty)
Nicola Benedetti – one of today's most inspiring musicians, and new director of the Edinburgh International Festival. 🎻
(📷 Chris Radburn)
Vienna Cathedral’s 12,000-pipe organ, and the bone-chilling film music of Hans Zimmer…🏴☠️
https://www.instagram.com/lnhrdkrt/Watch the Stranger Things Theme on a concert grand piano:https://youtu.be/LvPKum_KrJs Pirates of the caribbean "Davy Jones...
Play with passion. Beethoven demands it.
Looking for the perfect summer soundtrack for your long vacation get-away or perhaps just a calm evening in your own backyard or garden? We have a suggestion for you. It's this week's Cafe Discovery, a newly-released album called Children’s Corner. The soloist on the recording is the man who has also arranged all the tunes on it for guitar… Johan Smith. The pieces featured here are ones that for Johan take him back to his childhood. Be sure to join us for featured tracks from the album all this week on City Cafe (GPB Classical/GPB Radio).
Album · 2023 · 33 Songs
‘I studied bel canto singing which is wonderful training to keep your voice in shape for a very long time. It is the vocal regimen used by opera singers so I still use those techniques that I learned 70 years ago!’
Legendary crooner Tony Bennett has died, aged 96.
He was in fine voice until the very end. And we have Italian opera to thank.
(📷 Virginia Sherwood/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images)
We're thrilled to announce that 15-year-old Australian violinist Christian Li headlines our Cafe Discovery this week. It’s his new release called ‘Discovering Mendelssohn' that we'll feature throughout the week on City Cafe (GPB Classical). You may have already heard of this superstar violinist. He was the youngest to ever record Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. This is his latest album, one with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis. It captures Mendelssohn’s music through his travels…all the cities he visited, and the music inspired by them. So, as we embark on this musical journey together this week, 'Bon voyage!'
Album · 2023 · 13 Songs
Bradley Cooper, who is directing and starring in the upcoming biopic about great composer Leonard Bernstein, reveals his ‘obsession with conducting classical music’.
In an interview on CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Cooper was asked about his second directorial project Maestro, about the late composer Leonard Bernstein – and revealed that he was so taken with conducting in his childhood, that at the age of 8 he, “asked Santa Claus for a [conducting] baton”.
The director revealed on the Colbert Show that, “I had this obsession with classical conducting. In grad school for my MFA, I created the character of a conductor, and wrote a monologue for him".
Set to premiere in 2023 on Netflix, Maestro will see Cooper star alongside actress, Carey Mulligan, who will play Bernstein’s wife, the chilean-born actress, Felicia Montealegre.
(📷 Alamy)
Arise, Sir Stephen Hough.
Yesterday, pianist Stephen Hough was made a Knight Bachelor by King Charles III at an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle, recognising his services to music. Congratulations, Sir Stephen!
(📷 Jonathon Brady/Alamy)
Opera’s most weird-and-wonderful costumes and props could be yours...
This weekend, the English National Opera is opening up its archives to the public, for a one-off sale.
Members of the public will be able to pick up items crafted for the great opera stage, from sparkling costumes and wedding dresses to vintage furniture and eye-catching props – including, but not limited to, a giant lizard.
The sale, which is the ENO’s first in a decade, is perfect for opera enthusiasts and cultural collectors who would like to take a piece of the English National Opera home with them.
With a treasure trove of theatrical thingamajigs to rummage through, it appears there will be something for everyone.
Prices start at £5 ($6.42) and the one-off sale will be held for only two days this weekend. It’s never too early to find that perfect Halloween costume!
(📷 Picture: English National Opera)
🇺🇸 Wishing for you and yours a fabulous 4th! 🇺🇸
(📷 Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library)
Take a deep breath, and enjoy the music. 🎶
“I’m so grateful for my classical training. I played Chopin and Bach, and Mozart and Debussy. Without my training, I never would’ve been able to write the songs I’ve written.” – Sir Elton John. ❤️
(📷 Elton John)
Mozart at Glastonbury 2023 Thank you, Lizzo!
“Ready for some more flute sashays? ”
French virtuoso Colette Maze, the world’s oldest recording pianist born in June 1914, has turned 109 years old.
Many happy returns to a remarkable musician – here’s to a lifetime of music-making!
(📷 AFP/VNA/CVN)
Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein on the Central Park set of the eagerly awaited biopic, 'Maestro'. 🎬
An opera written by Antonio Salieri in 1788 will get its debut performance more than 200 years after it was written.
The Austrian-based Italian classical composer, famously a contemporary of Mozart, wrote his opera ‘Cublai, gran kan de’ Tartari (Kublai Grand Kahn of Tartary) in 1788. However, the production was abandoned due to its political themes during a particularly delicate time.
Instead, the opera will receive its premiere in April 2024 at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien in a performance by the French ensemble, Les Talens Lyriques, who revived another opera by the composer in 2021.
(🎨 Joseph Willibrord Mähler)
A bronze bust has been sculpted in honour of British conductor and the LSO's outgoing music director, Sir Simon Rattle.
The sculpture, made by Frances Segelman, Lady Petchey, has been donated to Help Musicians and will be presented at a farewell concert for Rattle at the Barbican Centre.
(📷 Frances Segelman/YouTube)
“Play always as if in the presence of a master” – Robert Schumann, born on 8 June 1810. 🎹
A rare viola has been stolen from the mailroom of a New York apartment building and replaced in its case with a much cheaper model, in a musical instrument heist.
Once owned by the principal violist of the LA Philharmonic, the viola had been sent to New York City to be shown to a potential buyer, but postal delays meant it arrived two days late.
The package was left in the mailroom for a week, and on the recipient’s return they found the package had been tampered with, and a much cheaper instrument left in its place.
An investigation by the New York Police Department and the US Postal Service is underway.
(📷 Strumenti/Geoffrey Maingart)
Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, who has died aged 70 after treatment for brain cancer, is remembered as one of contemporary music's most original, and influential figures. ❤️
(📷 Getty - Raphael GAILLARDE/Gamma-Rapho)
Proving that you just never know when…or where…a summer storm will pop up. ⛈️ 🎶
This girl’s request turned into the best duet I ever had 🤯🤯
Enjoying this week's Cafe Discovery? Want to sample some of the other tracks? Well, you've come to the right place to continue your exploration of this wonderfully sunny collection of summer music in celebration of female composers. Just click below for more from this week’s featured album, Heike Matthiesen's Guitar Divas.
Album · 2023 · 15 Songs
Never forget the first great pianists you saw play... 📺
Today we honor the memory of those who have so valiantly protected our freedom over the centuries.
The octobass, a 9.7 foot-high string instrument, has a range extending down to an A0, the lowest note on a concert grand piano.
It’s played here by Eric Chappell of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
(📷 Antoine Saito)
Opéra national de Paris has announced that music director Gustavo Dudamel has resigned from his role for ‘personal reasons’, and will be stepping down at the end of the season.
The shock resignation comes just two years after Dudamel began his tenure in one of the classical music industry’s biggest jobs.
Dudamel was brought to Paris under a six-year contract in 2021, and is subsequently breaking this four years early.
(📷 Getty)
Tina Turner on what she imagined heaven to be. ❤
Born Anna Mae Bullock, Tina Turner was one of the greatest vocalists of the last century.
The legendary Queen of Rock and Roll began her musical journey aged nine, singing in a local church choir. She went on to win 12 Grammy Awards and was a two-time inductee into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame.
Turner died on Wednesday 24 May, aged 83, following a long illness.
(📷 Quoteikon)
This is your chance to 'see' music and 'hear' art!
This week's Cafe Discovery is a new recording of Beethoven's 4th and 5th symphonies played by the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. To accompany the NSO's recordings of all nine Beethoven symphonies, author and illustrator Mo Willems has created Beethoven Symphonies Abstracted, nine large-scale, painted abstractions inspired by the music and genius of Beethoven. Each large-scale work is a response to one of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, divided into panels that visually interpret each symphonic movement. Now, the art 'hits the road' as each recording in the Beethoven cycle includes Willems' work on the cover. Take a look for yourself!
This extraordinary sculpture in Canada is the largest violin in the world. 🎻
Towering at a height of 60 feet (18.2 metres), the fiddle and bow can be seen by the incoming cruise ships in the harbour.
Made of solid steel, the Big Ceilidh Fiddle was designed and constructed by Cyril Hearn, and is situated on the Sydney Pavilion in Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia.
(📷 Wikimedia Commons)
It's Tuesday and time for us to reveal our Cafe Discovery for the week. It’s such a joy to bring you this recording…and it really does capture joy. It features the National Symphony Orchestra performing one of the very first live concerts as we all began emerging from the pandemic. That excitement of in-person performance at The Kennedy Center can actually be heard in this incredible recording. The album contains Beethoven’s 4th and 5th Symphonies under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda. Be sure to listen to City Cafe throughout the week for highlights from this brand new release on GPB Classical.
Album · 2023 · 8 Songs
Nick Mohammed plays the violin with unexpected aplomb in the tenth episode of Ted Lesso Season 3. But is the actor really playing – and what’s that haunting tune that rises from his instrument? 🎻
Nick wrote on Twitter: “OK so this ep of is special for lots of reasons… but mostly because it’s my *incredible* wife playing the piano to Arvo Pärt’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ with me on my old violin from home. Nick closed by saying, “The piece was [series co-creator and star, Jason Sudeikis’] idea: literally translates as ‘mirror in mirror’.”
(📷 Apple TV+)
British cellist Amaryllis Fleming after a Royal Albert Hall debut in 1953.
Fleming devoted much of her career to chamber music, pioneered baroque cello performance, and was an influential cello teacher at London’s Royal College of Music, whose main concert hall is now named after her.
Catherine, Princess of Wales delighted Eurovision viewers with an unexpected piano cameo in the opening sequence of Saturday’s finals.
Her Royal Highness appeared at the piano alongside stars from the musical world including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Eurovision 2022 runner-up, Sam Ryder.
(📷 Alex Bramall)
The Bridgerton universe is back, once again convincing us that 'Halo' sounds better as a harpsichord hit...
Here are all the classical pop covers on the new Queen Charlotte soundtrack, from Beyoncé and Whitney Houston to a new classical piece from composer Kris Bowers, ‘A Feeling I’ve Never Been’.
1. A Feeling I’ve Never Been – Kris Bowers, Tayla Parx
2. Halo (Beyoncé) – Brian Chan and Caleb Chan
3. If I Ain’t Got You (Alicia Keys) – Vitamin String Quartet
4. Déjà Vu (Beyoncé) – Audiostation
5. Run the World (Beyoncé) – Brian Chan and Caleb Chan
6. Nobody Gets Me (SZA) – Brian Chan and Caleb Chan
7. I Will Always Love You (Whitney Houston) – Vitamin String Quartet
8. If I Ain’t Got You (Alicia Keys) – Alicia Keys, Queen Charlotte’s Global Orchestra
(📷 Alamy)
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Send a message to John Lemley's City Cafe:
John believes that classical music is the greatest genre of music ever written. His aim is to share it with the widest possible audience, no matter who they are or where they are. John always wants to make sure that the performances he broadcasts are of the utmost integrity and the highest quality. But, at the same time, he always tries to break down some of the barriers which have grown up around classical music.
Classical music is at the heart of everything you’ll hear on City Café. John believes classical music can and should be a part of everyone’s lives – regardless of age. City Café makes classical music a relevant part of the modern lifestyle. To achieve this, John plays familiar music alongside less known pieces, all chosen to uplift, soothe and stir the emotions.
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